Audio 3:12
Tragic scene of immolation at Rome airport

Europe correspondent Philip Williams witnesses tragedy at a Rome airport as a teenaged asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast attempts to self immolate.

Transcript

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Our Europe correspondent Philip Williams and his cameraman Cameron Bauer were preparing to return from Rome after covering the sudden announcement of the Pope's impending resignation.

They were checking in at the airport on their way back to London when suddenly a completely unexpected tragedy unfolded before their eyes.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: We were in the process of checking in our bags when about 30 metres away hidden from view came a terrible noise, then thick smoke, flames, and screams.

As most sensible people moved quickly away or stood transfixed by the totally unexpected commotion, Cameron and I moved closer and started filming, still unable to see what was happening, but with the flames flaring from a passageway and the smoke billowing through the terminal.

Could this be a terrorist attack, a suicide bombing gone wrong, an accident, or perhaps a personal tragedy?

It took the airport authorities a surprisingly long time to evacuate the terminal.

Finally we were pushed out onto the pavement.

We filed a quick report on News24 on what we did and more importantly didn't know.

(Excerpt from report)

I'm at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, and a few minutes ago there was smoke inside, people were evacuated, we heard screaming.

We still don't know at this stage what's going on. It is possible that someone perhaps self-immolated, and that would accord with what we saw and heard, but it might be something worse.

At this stage, we just don't know...

(End excerpt)

That guess - it might have been someone setting themselves on fire - was tragically correct.

A 19-year-old asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast had indeed self-immolated to avoid deportation.

According to the Italian Council for Refugees, he had arrived on a flight from The Netherlands and been turned back to Rome.

He had already been told by the Italian authorities that his asylum application had been rejected.

(Emergency service sirens)

Only desperate people do what he did next - he was rushed to hospital with extensive burns.

A policeman who tried to smother the flames suffered burns to his arm.

I don't know the young man's story, what he so feared he was willing to burn his own body to avoid deportation. Was it persecution, poverty, personal problems?

He is just one of millions of refugees in Europe whose stories are seldom heard.

If he had been a terrorist we would have delved deeply into his past - his motivations, his connections.

He would have been a story.

But in the end, he was just another unfortunate other - an unwanted outsider.

The terminal was reopened, we checked in, and boarded our flight back to London.

As we flew back to Heathrow, I didn't reflect on the past few days covering the Pope's resignation.

What haunted me were the screams and the smoke and the flames - the anguish and desperation of one individual.

There are countless more asylum seekers like him throughout Europe, a precarious life in limbo, largely out of sight and mind.

Each one has a story to tell; there are precious few who care to know.